I was told freshman Republicans don't get their bills heard.
— Dan Webster
If you need a door kicked in, just call, and we'll kick it. Now, it may not always be the answer you want, but you will get an answer.
My expectations are not in any future event. I would rather just be prepared for whatever might take place.
I don't do anything political on Sundays.
I've never, in my whole 30 years in office, run a negative ad.
Parents like options when it comes to their children's education. And they respond to quality.
We have a spending problem, not a taxing problem. The less we spend, the more jobs we have the potential to create.
You have got to clean your own house first before you tell other people that they aren't doing it right.
My job was to get a fair and open hearing to all ideas.
I always think I have a chance, and I always give it all I've got.
The principle is that every member needs to represent their district.
We've got to prove that we can lead, and I'm going to be all-in to help prove that.
Every member in Congress has a seat, and they deserve a seat at the table.
What really promotes business in this country is liberty, not demand for information.
There's a picture there that people realize that, we stop helping Israel, we lose God's hand, and we're in big time trouble.
Some people have been talking about - every place I go, they bring up the issue of foreign aid. I go, 'You can't get rid of all foreign aid.'
I have a problem with the way the House is run. I believe that a few people at the top of a pyramid of power have controlled this place for a long time.
I have saved $1,638,580 over my four years. That may not seem like a lot, faced with our deficit, but multiply it by 435 members of the House - and then the senators get three times as much - and you are adding up several millions in savings.
It's different from Washington in that in the legislature, you have to go home and have a job and actually make a living on your own. That gives you a different perspective.
I'm a plodder, not a planner.
I would like to give evidence we can lead. And I think the only way we can do that is to unify the diversity of the party.
For most of my time in Tallahassee, I did a lot of transportation.
During its first year of operation, Florida Virtual School had 77 students. The next year, it had 476 students; then 2,489 students the year after that.
The policy is one thing, but it's dictated by what the process is.
As a former minority leader who became the first Republican Speaker of the House in Florida since Reconstruction, I know that leadership is not an easy task.
If principles don't determine what you are going to pass or do, then power will.
When you wait to the last minute, you rush to get things done, and the closer you get to the deadline, the less options you have.
All I want to do is get back to a principle-based Congress.
John Boehner is a friend.
I've been a speaker. I've been a majority leader. I've been a minority leader. Those are the sort of things I don't need any more.
The voters in District 8 shared our vision that Washington is broken, and we're going to go up there and fix it.
Do I like foreign aid? Sometimes, but not every time. Don't like giving money to our enemies, but I love giving money to Israel.
I believe that Obamacare is bad for America.
There are amendments never offered, there are bills never heard, that are basically killed because of the process.
You can think of all the things a Congress or a legislature does, and then you kind of overshadow that with the fact that a few people are going to make those decisions.
I've never hidden my faith, but there are only a couple of issues I would die for. There are a few others I would dig my heels in on, and I've told my caucus that what they see is what they get.
I'm a homing pigeon. When I'm in Tallahassee, I give everything I have to being, hopefully, the best legislator I can be. When I'm home, I'm home. I try to not do legislative stuff. That brings a balance to life.
I never talk about my opponent because I don't think it's my right to judge.
The true value of having Florida Virtual School in this mix is that it creates a gold standard for all providers to meet if they hope to compete for Florida students. This program raises the bar for everybody, even the traditional public schools. And that benefits all our children.
We passed a bill in 1997, signed by Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles, which created a pilot program for a novel experiment called Florida Virtual School. The notion of children using a computer for a classroom and reporting to virtual teachers wasn't exactly mainstream thinking in those days.
I found a mistake in a rule. They addressed the wrong rule number... I pointed it out, did an amendment, and everybody was happy after that.
Every member of Congress deserves a seat at the table to be involved in the process. I will continue fighting for this to become a reality in Washington, and will be running for speaker of the House.
Power says if you are a committee chairman, your idea is good only because you have got power.
Are we going to just change the personalities in the speakership? Or are we going to fundamentally transform the way we do business here in Washington, D.C.?
I'm not an angry kind of person. What I am is a principled person.
We have a lot of talented people in this Congress, and we can avoid a lot of unintended consequences if we just included them.
Once we relieve them from sanctions, their economy opens up, and they can sell oil and pistachios and whatever else they sell around the world. That was why Iran needed a deal. Everyone knows they fund terrorism around the world. Having that extra money will add a lot of problems and create a lot more hot spots.
I'm going to be as sincere as I can in delivering the message I think is right. If people agree, great, and if they don't, I did my best.
You take away the money from Israel? No. That's something we can't do.
If you push down that pyramid of power and spread out the base, every member gets a chance to file their bill and have it heard and file their amendment and have it heard, as opposed to the system that we have now, which closes out, closes down bills, limits debate, and so forth.
